It was hard — very hard — to do, but I believe we have done ourselves proud.

U-T San Diego has picked its All-Time All-County prep football squad (based solely on high school credentials), consisting of first-, second- and third-team players in offense, defense, “athlete” and kicking categories. There was some emotion in the room, a few arguments, but we left without injury.

The panel consisted of myself, sports staffers Bill Center, John Maffei and Terry Monahan, deputy sports editor Jess Kearney, retired staffer Steve Brand and former Chargers and Rams publicist Rick Smith, who covered preps for the Evening Tribune in the 1960s and is a person I consider the premier high school sports historian in the history of our county (catch his great prep site,

We The Panel add up to about 400 years, and we all spent time watching prep sports in this area (and others). Together, we have seen every great high school player this county has produced since the mid-1950s.

Fame and historical accounts led to us adding players prior to that time (really, none of us saw Ted Williams play at Hoover High, but he probably would make our all-time baseball team).

In some cases, because versatile players worked on both sides of the ball or excelled on special teams, we moved them into the “athlete” category to make room for others at certain positions. As an example, San Diego High’s All-American, Deron Johnson, shined as an end, linebacker and punter, so we put him on the first-team “athlete” list.

Lincoln’s Marcus Allen (Heisman, Pro Football Hall of Famer) was the greatest prep player this county has produced. He was a marvelous quarterback, but a phenomenal defensive back (Monahan and I saw him play his first game, solely as a safety, and Marcus was stupid-good). So we put him on defense.

To make Marcus quarterback wouldn’t be right, because he doesn’t belong there. San Diego’s All-American Ezell Singleton does, on the first team. Vista’s brilliant Sal Aunese made second team. Much to my delight, Pete Gumina, who, along with Johnson, guided unbeaten San Diego to this city’s only mythical national championship (1955), is third team. Gumina, playing in Deron’s rather immense shadow under legendary coach Duane Maley, always has been underrated.

“We were Air Coryell before Air Coryell,” Gumina has told me. “I threw more to Art Powell my junior year than I did to Deron.”

Powell, who went on to star with the Raiders and made the All-Time AFL Team, is one of our first-team receivers (along with Lincoln’s and SDSU’s Patrick Rowe). Art’s brother, Charlie, may have been the greatest athlete this area has produced. He went to the NFL straight out of San Diego High (and also fought Muhammad Ali). Injured Charlie missed the last 3½ games his senior year at San Diego and still was Southern California Player of the Year. He made this as “athlete.”

Their younger brother, Jerry, a quarterback at Lincoln, was county Player of the Year and did not make this list (much to my dismay). But what an incredible athletic family, the Powells. The Breitbard Hall of Fame should have a special wing for athletic families, the Powells topping it.

The most difficult position was running back. This is the only area in the country that has produced four Heisman Trophy-winning running backs — Allen, Henry’s Ricky Williams, La Jolla Country Day’s Rashaan Salaam and Helix’s Reggie Bush. Reggie made first team (as an “athlete”), along with El Capitan’s Bill Fudge. Rashaan and Ricky were third-team backs.

Hard, folks. Terrell Davis, an NFL and Super Bowl MVP back for the Broncos, played nose guard at Lincoln and didn’t make this list. Oceanside’s C.R. Roberts, Cathedral’s Tyler Gaffney and Lincoln’s mercurial and mystifying Darrin Wagner are first-team backs.

San Diego’s Michael Hayes was a marvelous runner, brilliant. He made second team. I can’t remember many tailbacks better than Sweetwater’s LeRoy “Touchdown” Brown — my, he had a unique style — and I tried to get him on but failed.

A big problem doing this is that football has changed so much, but how can we exclude the likes of oldies Brick Muller, Cotton Warburton (who, by the way, won an Oscar for editing “Mary Poppins”), Hobbs Adams, Bill McColl, Tom Dahms, Frank Green and Pesky Sprott? We can’t. Russ Saunders is not on this list!

But in a non-passing era, quarterbacks such as Singleton and Gumina put up big, modern passing numbers in the 1950s. Their games were ahead of their time.

You also may notice there are few players from this millennium on the list, and that San Diego High dominates, primarily because it dominated all sports in this area for the first 60 years of the 20th Century. It was an incredible athletic institution.

We left many terrific players off this list, but we were bound by limitations. Unfortunately, there’s no “trying to do better next time.”